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Don't count on finding one of those discontinued "Django Unchained" slave toys on eBay any time soon, the action figures have now been banned from the auction website.

The Weinstein Company (which produced the film) discontinued the promotional figurines in response to a massive backlash from several African-American advocacy groups.

After the toy company halted production, the toys began to pop up on eBay as "rare" collectibles ... and bids skyrocketed.

But last night, all the listings for the "Django" toys were yanked from the website -- and eBay explained itself to sellers with an email, saying, "Since the manufacturer of this product has discontinued the item’s sale due to its potentially offensive nature, we are not allowing it to be sold on eBay.”

eBay also cautioned the sellers not to re-list the items.

A rep for the auction website confirmed the story, telling us, "These [toys] were removed as they were in violation of our Offensive Materials policy."

It's making play things out of a story focusing on slavery. Regular action figures aren't usually based on real life suffering that actually happened to human beings. You really can't see how that's offensive?

I realise my question was poorly worded. I thought people were saying there was literally something about the specific dolls - django, broomhilda, and stephen - that was fashioned or made to look differently than the other 3, and not just that any of the dolls existed at all.

Out of sheer curiosity, do you find the American Girl doll, Addy, offensive? She was a slave and escaped with her mother. The story is much different than that of Django, but it's still making a toy out of stories focused on slavery.

Well, the entire American Girl doll line and is pretty gross in its own way though, like when they had the $100 homeless girl doll and didn't even use any of the proceeds for anti-homelessness charities. I don't know much about the Addy doll, but the line is supposed to be educational, which these (meaning the Django toys) toys clearly aren't. I do think it's a little off to have toys, like the AD dolls, depicting the struggles that real people went through relating to poverty and abuse be prohibitively expensive for a lot of children. I don't know that I'd be personally offended by Addy, but I can understand why people might be, just like I can understand why the Django dolls are offensive because they're exploitative.

The books definitely have value in teaching history but I am generally not a fan of the American Doll franchise in general just because of how expensive the toys are and that it's this weird message about look at the difficulties these girls faced and how you can be happy with just your family and friends but oh look here buy this doll dress for $30 to be REALLY happy.

The AG toys are designed to be heirloom-quality (whether or not they actually still are is up for debate). They're much more detailed and delicate than cheaper toys. That's why they're so expensive, not because it's a means of shutting out less wealthy buyers. Of course, some wealthy children collect them like Barbies, but that's always been the case as long as the company's been around.

That seemed more like an educational opportunity for young children. It was how I first learned about slavery and what had happened to my ancestors and I would say the books are okay simply for that reason: informing a younger generation.

I was going to mention her, too. Addy's story is one of the most moving in the AG canon, and all of the American Girl stories are designed to be educational. Many of them deal with some pretty deep subjects (poverty, war, being orphaned, slavery). I know many collectors (of many different races) who own the doll and the books for that reason -- they like her character and her books. Is that exploitative? Or is it only exploitative when the collector/child is white?

Well, Quentin Tarantino's movies are notoriously exploitative anyway, so that's not really giving the dolls more credit, it's actually just another checkmark in their offensive column. And there's been plenty of controversy over the movie, so let's not act like the movie is 100% accepted and it's only the dolls that are the problem.

But the dolls are a whole other level of crass and objectionable, and I don't get how people can't see that.

And the people doing the campaigning for the Oscar are the same ones who okayed the dolls. Are the Oscar voters the same ones who wanted the dolls pulled from the shelves? And Oscar voters have never been known to love offensive things, right?